Thankfully after reading through this post we finally get a sensible response, the previous one (not mine).

Water companies do not impose hosepipe bans for the sake of it. Yes some areas of the UK may have had high levels of rain last year and noted that their river etc were high, or they even experienced floods. But this doesn't mean that London did and it takes a long sustained period of rain to raise the reservoirs. Floods are caused by intense rain over a short period.

There is less chance of a hosepipe ban this year as the last three months have shown higher than average rainfall. I am also in agreement with the last post that London has lower rainfall than places like Rome, surprisingly.

Water companies draw attention to the loss of water through the high leakage rates by imposing bans. Fixing these leaks is costly and I don't know why people may believe that water companies are profiting by creating a hosepipe ban. Is this part of our culture now, that we now think that everybody is out to rip us off?

Irrespective of the bans, we should be recycling water and making efficient use of the water we have. Forget spray guns, use an automatic watering system where possible. Get a water butt and start storing water.

In my opinion the same goes for electric. Forget standby, switch of at the wall.

Ainsley
garden4less.co.uk